Changes

I've given this a lot of thought—years, in fact—and I've decided to change my pricing and distribution policy. 

First, The Smartest Girl in the Room is now permanently free. This wasn't something that I was comfortable with a few books ago. However, I've just released my eighth title, and I'm happy to let my first book be a free introduction to the rest of the series.

Second, the e-books for all of the other titles in The New Pioneers are now exclusively through the KDP Select program. While I agree in theory that making titles available on as many platforms as possible is a smart move, everything I've seen for the past three years has convinced me that authors in KDP Select can more easily promote their books than those who aren't. 

There's nothing stopping you now

Third, this also means that I'll be able to more easily offer sales on my titles. This is the biggest change. Again, I appreciate the arguments behind keeping prices stable, but it's just the smarter business move to be able to offer sales.

I've spent a lot of time writing (and editing...), and that should be my primary job. But I also now have the time to start thinking about marketing again. I'm excited about this, and I look forward to seeing how things shape up. So if you know of a marketing title you want to recommend, I'm all ears.

The next installment of The New Pioneers: Needs, Wants and Other Weaknesses (Book 6)

I am so excited to finally be able to share a preview of my latest novel. This will be released on October 3rd. A big thanks to Mia Darien and Erin Cawood for helping me pull this together, and another shout out to Caroline Fardig for helping me nail down the synopsis.

This is still the universe of The New Pioneers, and you may remember Detective Robert Teague from The China Doll and Let's Move On, but otherwise this is a huge departure for me. I felt pretty comfortable talking about politics in The Golden Boy Returns, but I squirmed as much as anyone would talking about the dark places and people in this book. This isn't about human trafficking as much as it is the banal human exploitation that goes on every day...and one person who decided to do something about it.

I hope you like it.

Boston Police Detective Robert Teague risked his professional reputation to close the case that ruined his father. He burned a lot of people to do that, and after six years the captain who saved his job hasn’t forgotten how much Robert screwed up. A detective of his experience should have something better to do than chasing down a complaint against a paroled convict, but maybe that's why his gut is telling him something doesn’t make sense. Why did this boyfriend pimp get such a light sentence in the first place, and why did one of Boston’s most prestigious law firms represent him? And what is it about the complaining witness that makes her less reliable every time he talks to her? (The fact that she’s using an alias isn’t helping.)

Even a hard-boiled cop would be shocked by the world Hannah Bruges has been slipping in and out of since she was a young teenager. Counterfeiting, child prostitution and slave labor in all its forms make the world a miserable place, and Hannah knows better than most how evil it can be when no one cares. When anyone can get what they want at every level of a dark market, nothing’s as cheap as a human life. Robert would be happy to close the case if Hannah didn’t keep walking into trouble and dragging him into it with her. And if he’s honest, the detective in him wants to know what she’s really after: the people the law can’t find, or the person no one bothered to look for?

There’s always someone who can give you what you want and what you need, but nothing comes without a price. How much are you willing to pay when it’s someone you love?

Buy it on Amazon

Maybe there's no there there

Last year I read The Life-Changing Magic of Cleaning Up by Marie Kondo and it did just that. I tidied my bedroom and the common areas of my home and in the process had to tune into what it was that made me happy and what I wanted more of in my life.

I won’t bore you with those answers—shockingly, it includes more time with my family—but one thing that did not make the list was social media. I had already been worn out by Facebook, but I finally decided that I was going to quietly delete my account and slip away as opposed to making a big deal about it. (Yes, I do still have what I call a shadow account so I can maintain my Facebook page, but I post nothing as a “person” there.) You’re not going to be surprised when I tell you that it felt like a weight off my shoulders, in large part because so many other people have reported the same thing.

My problem with Facebook, in a nutshell, was that it became a hyper-filtered environment that had a limited view of what I wanted to see. I liked that Twitter allowed me to create lists so I could, essentially, create my own filters, and again, this isn’t an original insight. Sadly, Twitter decided that if it was going to take Facebook on, it needed to become Facebook. They turned on filtering and started recommending people that, really, I didn’t want to deal with. Add that to the extremely contentious presidential primary season, and by April I was happy to walk away from that too (and did).

I started looking at everything else, and they seemed even less useful. Pinterest, which used to be a fun place to curate images, is now a billboard filled with ads that also doesn’t trust my judgment about what I want to see; Tumblr, which does seem to have a lot of potential, was impossible for me to figure out and the fact that almost no one I knew was there sucked my motivation to try; and LinkedIn, which I joined before anything else, looks like a bunch of graphics with platitudes—one of the other things I hated about Facebook—and they’re admonishments to reconnect with former colleagues seems unattractively desperate.

It's not fair to call the internet a black hole; black holes aren't hollow

Without social media, what’s left? Blogs! So I spent some time on my list of blogs to follow, researching what I should add and then happily deleting content that wasn’t working for me. It was a little thin, but it reflected my interests more than any social media scroll ever did.

Too bad one of my favorite bloggers, so disgusted by the political circus, quit blogging. And it’s really, genuinely awful that one of the first bloggers I followed (stalked?) needed to be treated for a life-threatening illness and therefore stopped blogging for more than a year. And then there was the blogger who had all kinds of great information about self-publishing and was openly using her posts to build a network but then decided that blogging wasn’t as much of a priority once she landed a traditional publishing contract.

People are allowed to change and I wish all of them well, but those people have been hard to replace. While one of them is, arguably, irreplaceable because of his resume, the others, in theory, aren’t. So why has it been so hard to fill those holes?

Perhaps because I’m not as motivated to look. Sometimes it is just painful to surf the world wide web that Google presents to us. So. Many. Ads. And so many sites trying to lure you into signing up for their newsletter (guys, I want the same thing, but my link is on the left, and I promise I will not use a pop-up to peddle it). It’s enough to make you want to hide in your email...until you get the spam. If I don't get fifteen review requests every day, I don't get any.

There are two tools that have been somewhat useful. The first is, er, those newsletters. There are maybe three or four people or companies I enjoy getting regular updates from, and—for the most part—I feel like I’m getting useful information. But oh how I burn when they try to upsell me! Yes, I might want your next DVD or book—this is how we got to “know” each other in the first place—but why do you think I want to go away on a retreat with you—all I did was buy your DVD!—and why do you think I want to be...A TIDYING CONSULTANT?! Et tu, Marie Kondo?

So the tool that has disappointed me the least might be, of all things, Google Alerts. It’s very nice to find something in my inbox pointing me to the latest article about Kondo or Christina Tosi (have you made her cakes yet? Mmm…), and the worst I have to get through is an occasional library book list or restaurant opening announcement.

I like filters as long as I can create them.

I have a feeling I’m not alone. I’ve been amusing myself with Korean movies on Netflix (but for the love of all things holy, can they please improve their search engine and stop trying to get me to watch things I’ve already seen—on their site?!) and spending time in the gorgeously renovated Boston Public Library. Am I still stressing that I’m not churning out stories quickly enough? Sure—but at least I don’t have to be irritated by the weirdness of the internet at the same time.

If you’re also spending less time online, what are you doing with those hours?

Any Way You Plan It by Monique McDonell (Book 4 of The Upper Crust Series) (Release Day)

Mike warned Marissa back in high school that if they kissed, she’d never get over it. He was joking, but he was also right.

Ten years later and Marissa is well and truly stuck in Mike’s friend-zone and he’s made it very clear that’s where she’s staying.  Her love-life isn’t the only part of her life that’s in a rut so when her elderly parents pack up and move South, Marissa admits it’s time to move on with her life.

With the encouragement of her friends Lucy and Cherie, the matchmaker, she updates her wardrobe and her attitude. Lucy’s engagement party is the perfect place to start fresh and find her old self again, the self that likes to dance until dawn. Mike wants Marissa to be happy and he’s convinced he’s not up to the job, but he doesn’t like watching her flirt with other men or worse, dating again. His twin brother, Todd, who is Marissa’s best friend warns him to back off, he’s had his chance.

Is this a case of not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone? And if so what is Mike prepared to do to get Marissa back with the whole town there to offer him advice.

Will Marissa and Mike get their happily ever after or is it a case of too little too late?

Any Way You Plan It is Book 4 in The Upper Crust Series

Book 1 – Any Way You Slice It

Book 2 – Any Way You Dream It

Book 3 – Any Way You Fight It

Excerpt

Marissa lay in bed thinking about Mike. Stupid Mike with his cute smile and the way he somehow managed to capture her attention in any room he was in. Mike who had once told her he liked her. Who’d once kissed her and made her want more. He’d warned her that he wouldn’t give her more, that they would never end up together, and she hadn’t heeded the warning.

Nope, she’d been a naive teenager who believed in happily ever afters and life-long friendships and first loves becoming forever loves. She flopped over onto her belly and groaned. Why hadn’t she listened?

The prom after party was at Jacob’s house. Jacob was hosting, and Lucy was on his arm, of course. Marissa didn’t envy her so much as wish she, too, had a hot and handsome boyfriend to take her to prom. Patty had Mark Avery, who graduated last year and was back from Holy Cross for the prom. She, of course, had gone with Mike; they were great friends. He had brought her a really beautiful pink corsage to match her dress, and he looked so handsome.

As Lucy had said earlier, she should really consider making a move because she’d been crushing on him forever, and he was going off to NYU and she was going to UNH with Lucy, and how often would they really see each other again?

“You may never get another shot at this, Marissa,” Lucy had urged her.

So now they were here, dancing to the DJ, and maybe it was the alcohol, but Mike looked even better than usual. It was a slow dance and he felt so warm, and her whole body had a lovely tingle that she knew was not from the beer.

“Thanks for being such a great date, Mike,” she said, looking adoringly at his sweet and perfect face.

“Same to you. It has been really fun. I’m going to miss you when we go off to college,” he’d said and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. She knew she was blushing, but it was dark, so hopefully he wouldn’t notice.

“I know, I’m going to miss you, too. It’s scary to think you can spend so much time with someone and then they’ll be gone.”

“We’ll both be gone. You’ll be away flirting your ass off at UNH.”

“OH really.” She laughed, leaning back a bit so she could feel his hand pressed into the small of her back. “You think I’ll be flirting my ass off?”

“Of course you will. You’re a beautiful girl, and all those boys are going to be fighting to get near you.”

She laughed again. “So it’ll be exactly like high school. I’ll be beating them off with a stick.”

“I don’t think you’ve lacked male attention, Marissa. You’ve had Todd and I beside you every day.”

“It’s different though. Neither of you like me like that,” she said, pulling back in and resting her head on his shoulder. Taking in the lovely woody smell of him for maybe the last time.

“That’s not true.” His voice fell to a whisper. “One of us likes you as more than a friend.”

She turned her face up at him. “Which one?”

“Me.”

Marissa felt the air leave her lungs. Luckily, he had a hold of her or she might have fallen over with the shock.

“Really?”

He nodded. “You want to go outside and get some air.”

He took her hand and led her to the back porch. There were people sitting in small groups, and they went past them and made their way to a line of trees that framed the back of the yard. No one noticed them or acted like it was strange because Marissa was always with one brother or the other.

It was dark except for the glow of lights from nearby houses and some moonlight. The party music and laughter drifted across the lawn toward them.

“Why did you never say?” she asked him.

“You deserve better.” He shrugged.

“You think I deserve better than you? I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I’m just saying I don’t see myself as a settle down and get married guy.”

“Well, considering I’m just eighteen, I don’t consider myself a settle down and get married girl, either.”

“You know what I mean.”

“So even though you like me, you’ve never kissed me because you’re not sure you can marry me in say seven years?” she teased.

“When you put it like that, it sounds kind of lame.” He grinned at her.

“Just a little bit.”

“I just . . .” He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t want to mess this friendship up. You’re going to go away, meet some hot guy, and bring him home; I don’t want to see you at the Fourth of July parade and have it weird between us.”

“Wow, you must be an amazing kisser if you think one kiss with you is going to ruin me for my really hot husband down the road”

“I don’t like to brag . . .”

“I’m going to need proof,” she said, smiling at him.

He backed her up against a tree. She could feel the rough bark against her back and his warm body against her front. “Proof you say.”

She nodded and bit her lip. This was really happening. After years of longing and waiting, wondering and wishing, Mike was going to kiss her.

He leaned in and placed a feathery kiss to her lips. A hand was to either side of her head on the tree.

“You taste like vanilla.”

“Lip gloss.” She managed to reply.

“Yum.” Then he leaned in again. He ran his tongue along her lips and she opened for him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt his soft hair against her hands. His tongue became more searching, more urgent. And then time slipped away and it was just Mike and his mouth and a perfect moment.

When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers. “Wow. That was . . .”

“It certainly was.”

“You want to go back inside?”

She shook her head at him. “No, I want to do that again.”

That was the one and only time they’d made out, and he’d been right and she had been oh so wrong because that one kiss with Mike had absolutely ruined her for her really hot future husband. In fact, it had ruined her for even the pursuit of a future husband.

About Monique McDonell

I am an Australian author who writes contemporary women's fiction including chick lit and romance.

I have written all my life especially as a child when I loved to write short stories and poetry. At University I studied Creative Writing as part of my Communication degree. Afterwards I was busy working in public relations I didn't write for pleasure for quite a few years although I wrote many media releases, brochures and newsletters. (And I still do in my day-job!)

When I began to write again I noticed a trend - writing dark unhappy stories made me unhappy. So I made a decision to write a novel with a happy ending and I have been writing happy stories ever since.  

I am the author of five stand alone novels including Mr. Right and Other Mongrels and Hearts Afire and the Upper Crust Series. Many of my novels focus on an Australian characters meeting and visiting US characters.

I have been a member of the writing group The Writer’s Dozen for ten years. Our anthology Better Than Chocolate raised over $10,000 for the charity Room to Read and helped build a library in South East Asia. I am also a member of the Romance Writers of Australia. In 2015 had a piece on writing chicklit featured in the successful Australian non-fiction book Copyfight.

I live on Sydney's Northern Beaches with my husband and daughter where I run a boutique PR consultancy.

To learn more about my books, my writing, my caffeine obsession and my upcoming books please visit www.moniquemcdonell.com.au.

Where to find Monique

Amazon

Website

Facebook

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Blog

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Mug Shot by Caroline Fardig (Book 2 in the Java Jive series)

Guys, do you even know how ill I was last week? So sick that I haven't even started this yet—but I will today! Juliet Langley is even more hilarious than Lizzie Hart, and the crowd she runs with is even loopier. I look forward to laughing yet again as our heroine stumbles over a few more dead bodies. Let's give it up for Caroline today and get this book now!

Full of humor and suspense, the bestselling Java Jive series heats up as the irrepressible heroine of Death Before Decaf faces off against Nashville’s upper crust to solve a shocking murder.

Book Description:

 
Former musician Juliet Langley has barely had a day off since taking over management of the coffeehouse owned by her best friend, Pete Bennett. But there’s always more to be done—such as prepping for the annual Holiday 5K Race organized by Pete’s snobby socialite girlfriend, Cecilia Hollingsworth. This year, Java Jive has a booth right at the finish line, and since Juliet and Cecilia don’t always see eye to eye, everything has to be perfect. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing . . . like Juliet stumbling over Cecilia’s dead body on the morning of the race.
 
When Pete is arrested for Cecilia’s murder, Juliet sets out to clear his name. She’ll do whatever it takes—even if it means standing up to the police, her ex-boyfriend, and the grande dames of Nashville. But there isn’t enough espresso in the world for the greatest challenge in her path: infiltrating Nashville’s high society to uncover the hidden hotbed of scandal without running afoul of the law herself. With her last dime staked on Pete’s bail bond and her staff growing jittery, the last thing Juliet needs is for her trademark temper to land her behind bars. As time drips away, Juliet needs to crack this case before the killer comes back for another shot.

MUG SHOT is the second book in the JAVA JIVE MYSTERIES series.  DEATH BEFORE DECAF (Book 1) is a USA TODAY BESTSELLER.

Buy MUG SHOT now! 

About the Author:

CAROLINE FARDIG is the USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR of the Java Jive Mysteries series and the Lizzie Hart Mysteries series. Fardig's BAD MEDICINE was named one of the "Best Books of 2015" by Suspense Magazine. She worked as a schoolteacher, church organist, insurance agent, funeral parlor associate, and stay-at-home mom before she realized that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Born and raised in a small town in Indiana, Fardig still lives in that same town with an understanding husband, two sweet kids, two energetic dogs, and one malevolent cat.

Connect with Caroline!

Website | Blog | Mailing List | Twitter | Facebook

Book Release Day: The Golden Boy Returns (Book Five of The New Pioneers) (New Release, Giveaway)

Today is the day I finally bring to everyone The Golden Boy Returns, the book I hemmed and hawed about more than any other I've written. Silly, if you think about it: in addition to romance and The Journey all characters go through, I knew you guys could handle complex family relationships, long harbored secrets and, perhaps hardest of all, domestic violence. So of course you can handle some politics! And I promise that while I do reference some policies (briefly!), you will not need a degree in political science to follow along.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble |Kobo |Smashwords | iTunes

A few words about the cover: I loved the covers for my first five books; the illustrations and designs perfectly captured the balance of whimsy and drama I'm going for in all of my work. But when it came time to design a cover for my Korean American hero and my Indian American heroine, I could not for the life of me find any illustrations that came close to the others. I could have gone with something more abstract by the same artist, but David and Kasi deserve a visual as much as any of my other characters. A big thanks—once again—to Erin Cawood for bringing these two alive.

To celebrate the release, I'm running a giveaway until March 31st. Join my newsletter list (only my publishing news, never spam) and you'll get a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card and e-copies of The Smartest Girl in the Room and The Art of The Second Best.

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Here's a little more about the newest edition to The New Pioneers. Hope you like it!

In praise of...The Blacklist

While a lot of the country, if not the world, sits back at 9 on Thursdays to watch Scandal, I get my fix of action, adventure and mystery with The Blacklist, possibly the best show on television right now.

Like many, I thought the premise of James Spader playing a super villain mastermind was kooky—they're totally going for a Lex Luthor thing with that bald head—but he's actually brilliant as Raymond "Red" Reddington. Reddington, a former Naval Intelligence Officer, inexplicably betrayed his country in the early Nineties and has gone on to become one of the most wanted men in the world. Just as inexplicably, Reddington turned himself in with the offer to help an FBI task force catch other super criminals- the Blacklist- but only if he can operate as a free man and, most importantly, if he can work with newbie FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). But why?

Just one of the many messes Red's gotten Liz into

In between his eccentric, seemingly non sequitur tangents that make everyone who works with him feel like they're trapped with their crazy uncle, the outlines of what Red is trying to accomplish are starting to become clearer. While it first seemed that he was merely disrespecting the "honor among thieves" (is that a thing?), it became clear that 1) he was being hunted by some very powerful people and 2) he was trying to take them down before they got to him. Since those people included not only rival criminal bosses but also highly placed government officials, it was only a matter of time before everyone he and Liz worked with were going to be endangered as well.

But why does Red insist on working with Liz? From the outset, the best fan theory has been that Red is Liz's father, and every time he protests that he's not, it seems like the show is still leaving the door open for that possibility. Yes, the big reveal last season—SPOILER ALERT (but so is this whole post)—is that Red rescued Liz as a small child after she shot her father dead, but the scars we saw on Red's back at the end of that episode just might link him to the fire Liz remembers her father rescuing her from earlier. Regardless, we finally know that Liz's biological mother was a legendary Soviet spy and that she and Red were, at the very least, close. If he's not her father, then why is he going to such extraordinary lengths to protect her?

How extraordinary? Tom Keen, Liz's ex-husband, was posing as an elementary school teacher but was in fact hired by Red to watch over her. When he went off script and wanted to see her romantically, Red fired him, which necessitated Tom going over to rival super criminal, Berlin. Liz was happily oblivious to all of this until Tom had murdered at least three people. Needless to say, this caused a huge rift between Red and Liz, especially when Tom killed yet again while in Liz's captivity...but this time to protect her. (You had to see the whole thing.)

"Tom" really doesn't look like someone who could kill several people with his bare hands...

Make no mistake: this is a crazy, convoluted show and the twists are unbelievable. What makes it work (in addition to my confidence that the writers actually know where they're going) are the consistently amazing performances of Spader and Boone. At this point, we expect Spader to do a good job with a crazy role (and, honestly, this is probably among his most straight forward), but kudos to Boone for being able to match him in every scene. Spader may be the mystery at the core of the show, but Boone is the detective we're following as she sorts it out.

Those two are the stars, but the rest of the cast is just as good: Diego Klattenhoff is Keen's tightly wound partner Donald Ressler, Harry Lennix is her honest but compassionate boss Harold Cooper ; Mozhan Marno is Samar Navabi, a former Mossad agent whom Red recruited for Liz's task force; Amir Arison is Aram Mojtabai, the earnest technical expert; Hisham Tawfiq is Dembe Zuma, Red's right-hand man and foster son who is a survivor of human trafficking; and Ryan Eggold is Liz's true love ex-husband, con man Tom. (The list of villains and recurring allies is too long to go into, but they're almost all stellar.) Through the course of the show, we've gotten glimpses into almost everyone's complicated lives outside of their jobs; as surprising as some of the stories can be, know that every human connection you see is an opening for one of Red's enemies to exploit.

As if this group wouldn't have enough problems without Reddington...

The best perk Dembe enjoys working for Red? Actually getting Red to shut up on occasion.

I have no idea where this is going, but I'm enjoying the ride so much that I'm willing to be surprised. The last time this happened? Mad Men.

Almost every episode, I marvel that this show exists: a smart action series with a female lead and a diverse cast that doesn't play to stereotypes on a major American television network. If this is an alternate universe, just leave me here.